Samuel Little — Most Prolific U.S. Serial Killer

Samuel Little is the most prolific serial killer in United States history by confirmed confession. Between 1970 and 2005, he traveled the country killing women he targeted from society's margins — sex workers, drug users, and the homeless — strangling them with his powerful hands. Because his victims were largely ignored by law enforcement, Little operated undetected for decades, with many of his crimes filed as accidents, overdoses, or left as unresolved cases. Little was convicted of three California murders in 2014, but it was not until 2018, when FBI analyst Christie Palazzolo worked with him extensively in prison, that he began confessing to the full scope of his crimes. He ultimately confessed to 93 murders across 19 states, providing detailed accounts and drawing portraits of victims from memory. The FBI verified at least 60 of these confessions and considers all 93 credible. The confessions opened cold cases across the country, finally bringing resolution to families who had lost loved ones decades earlier. Little's ability to recall victims in vivid detail — their faces, names, where he had met them — decades after their deaths was extraordinary and deeply disturbing. He worked cooperatively with investigators, apparently deriving some satisfaction from the recognition and attention. Samuel Little died in a California correctional facility on December 30, 2020, at age 80, with the full weight of his legacy still being processed by law enforcement agencies nationwide. His case exposed the systemic failure to investigate the murders of marginalized women and the degree to which a killer could exploit that indifference for 35 years. Authorities are still working to officially match some of his remaining unidentified confessions to open cases.